310 PROOFS OF DESIGN. 
and providing an appropriate mechanism for the 
clasping and reclasping of the filaments in the 
feather of the Humming-bird. The geologist 
descries a no less striking assemblage of curious 
provisions, and delicate mechanisms, extending 
from the entire circumference of the crust of 
our planet, to the minutest curl of the smallest 
fibre in each component lamina of the pen of 
the fossil Loligo. He finds these pens uniformly 
associated with the same peculiar defensive pro- 
vision of an internal ink-bag, which is similarly 
associated with the pen of the living Loligo in 
our actual seas ; and hence he concludes, that 
such a union of contrivances, so nicely adjusted 
to the wants and weaknesses of the creatures in 
which they occur, could never have resulted 
from the blindness of chance, but could only 
have originated in the will and intention of the 
Creator. 
SECTION III. 
Proofs of Design in the Mechanism of Fossil 
Chambered Shells. 
NAUTILUS. 
I SHALL select from the family of Multilocular, 
or Chambered shells, the few examples which I 
shall introduce from mineral conchology, with 
